dunning1874

He was hoping a few games at a joke level over there would get him an A-League offer. Proper football clubs were never on the agenda.

He was dreadful for his first three games while clearly unfit, was fine in his fourth though faded badly in the last 20 minutes or so, then hasn't put a foot wrong in the last three. I do actually agree that Efe Ambrose at his peak was a far better player than a lot of people in Scotland give him credit for. His reputation as an error prone figure of fun at Celtic, which obviously has a particular prominence for Morton fans, has clouded the fact that he's had a far better career than 99% of players who find themselves in the Scottish Championship could ever dream of. The question is how far off that level he might be at 34, what with being relegated from this division last season. Still, we needed another centre back and he's not being managed by John Hughes, so we'll see how it goes.

Fully on board with this for the patter anyway, especially with Imrie being the manager to sign him. Despite my concerns about his ability at this point in his career, I'd much rather see him stepping into the defence as cover than Hynes.

If O'Connor and Lithgow are going to be out for a while there's a need for another centre back, but I'm sceptical about Ambrose being that player. Having seen our struggles with players needing to get up to fitness having joined well after the start of the season already, I'm a bit wary about how long a 34 year old will take compared to Grimshaw. It's not like there are multiple options available to us I know but I'm sceptical whether this would actually improve the defence that started on Saturday. Imrie's no stranger to rapidly improving players who've recently looked hopeless but Ambrose was murder at Dunfermline last season, it's not like waiting for Grimshaw to get up to speed knowing he's good enough for the top flight and would always come good when fit. We've only conceded one in our last four games even accounting for only having one centre back available on Saturday, I'd be wary of flinging an unfit Efe Ambrose straight in there.

Update on Premiership level Charlie. Airdrie before signing Telfer: P6 W3 D2 L1 Airdrie since signing Telfer (starting him every week): P5 W1 D1 L3 He's like an inverse Allan Jenkins.

It's been a mixed window all in. The midfield options have turned out to be decent despite the loss of Wilson. Gillespie, Crawford and Grimshaw, once the latter is match fit, is a better first choice three than we could have put out at any point last season. With McGrattan showing up well in sub appearances as well as King impressing we have the options there now to keep players colosally underperforming away from the team, as has been seen with Lyon being punted on loan and should now be seen with Blues having a lengthy spell out the team. The first choice defence has turned out well enough too, with Baird surpassing expectations so far and Pignatiello being solid. While Pignatiello is a downgrade on Brandon you simply aren't realistically going to find a player of Brandon's calibre for the Championship in January and I'm very happy with Pignatiello so far. O'Connor has had some shaky moments but largely been fine. The concern is the lack of decent cover once a couple of players are out, but Pignatiello's versatility and the emergence of King are a big help, while Grimshaw being another right back option at least puts Hynes further away from the team. Schwake has been excellent as well and looks to be another season of upgrading on what we had before in goal. This is inevitably going to stop at some point and we'll end up with a dud eventually, but we can enjoy it while it lasts regardless. I do wonder if Hamilton being second choice at Livingston this season may end up with him and Schwake swapping places next season but we'll see. It's mixed despite the positives above because nothing has gone right up front. Quitongo has been better than expected and has really been the sole cause for a bit of optimism so far, but leading the line isn't his game and even if he remains fit all season you're not going to get even an Ugwu level goal return out of him, which was itself insufficient. Despite being able to get some slack having missed much of pre-season with an injury, Muirhead's performances so far indicate that the best he can manage at this level is the impact sub role where he contributed well under Imrie last season: no good league performances this season so far. Kabia was a signing worth making as a young player who, like Pignatiello, was a standout in a lower division, but as sometimes will be the case with wingers making that step up he's just miles off being ready for it: one good league performance so far. Obviously Muirhead will start through the middle rather than on the right today and hopefully that sees an improvement, but failing that both he and Kabia should be getting lengthy spells on the bench, with no choice but to persist with Quitongo through the middle having failed to add anyone better. Discounting those two would leave our options to play up with Quitongo in a 4-3-3 as McGregor and one of McGrattan or King, which isn't great but I'd definitely rather see them given a shot there than persist with players offering nothing. On what we've seen so far, there simply aren't the goals in this team to compete. None of Ugwu, Reilly or Oliver scored enough and that's why we were the lowest scorers in the division last season, but they managed 19 league goals between the three of them while Quitongo, Muirhead & Kabia look like they'll struggle to manage 10. Hamilton, Dundee and Ayr are all games where we created enough chances to win comfortably and didn't have anyone good enough to take them. That's seven points thrown away already. Maybe once we get a settled first choice midfield with a run of games together and other players get a chance in the front three something will click in attack, but it needs to happen quickly - this is a big month which will see the division start to take shape with gaps forming at either end.

I'm still clinging to the hope of Motherwell letting Connor Shields go on loan after signing Moult, but he's still had a decent amount of game time under Hammell anyway so I'm not too optimistic of that. There's no one else with a competent Championship record available. Even if the position on a loanee today is now at desperation of "someone who isn't total shite" rather than "someone who is necessarily better than what we have", the options are thin on the ground.

Gourlay, but Charlie 'I could play in the Premiership no problem' Telfer signed for Airdrie the other day.

Very happy with that signing. Central midfield is his best position and King was our only cover there but is also currently first choice left back, with Jacobs & Lyon out on loan. McGrattan can obviously play as the most advanced of a three but we had no cover for playing any deeper, so he's surely here to play in midfield. A first choice three of Gillespie, Grimshaw and Crawford is a significant upgrade on where we were a few weeks ago, then we've King, Blues and McGrattan as cover for them. Maybe he will play right back at times but there's no way Pignatiello should be getting dropped.

It's not just the ridiculously weak attempt at a tackle in the build up to the second either, although that's his main contribution to it. Several players and the system could get a share of the blame for this, but when the ball goes out wide Pignatiello looks totally lost. That's primarily because he's been left with two men to pick up so gets caught between the two of them and is in two minds about going to press the ball. Maybe Pignatiello just needs to take the risk of going to the ball, but that's not really his own fault. He should have someone helping him out, whether that's Muirhead actually bothering to track back for once or one of Blues or Gillespie coming across to pick up the spare man. Muirhead is nowhere near it while Gillespie and Blues are both inside the box picking up nobody, and yes you need one of them there to cover the space but not two of them. Blues is far from the main culprit for that goal (that's O'Connor being on his heels) but he's absolutely contributed to it.

As someone who has been a fan of Reece Lyon since he emerged into the first team four years ago and has at times argued for him to get more of a chance, I had absolutely no qualms about him being dropped this season, because his performances whenever he was given a chance clearly weren't good enough. His subsequent loaning out naturally follows on from failing to impress in those performances, which included games against League One and Two sides. Despite being a player I rate on paper, the only reasonable conclusion is that he finds himself his himself in League Two due to not being good enough and that's his own fault. That said, Blues has been every bit as poor this season and yesterday was a full on Dylan Dykes level performance. It was like watching the 2019 Blues again, who Hopkin plucked out of a Berwick team who had lost 16 of their last 19 games on their way to relegation from League Two. Like Lyon, he simply hasn't been close to good enough this season. Yet where other players are dropped and punted for their unacceptable performances, Blues is not only undroppable but unsubbable - he has played every single minute that he's been available for. Where even Lewis Strapp, who most would agree is the best player at the club, finds himself dropped for giving away a goal, Blues puts in a man of the match performance for the opposition, directly creating their first goal and doing his routine disappearing act for the second, and yet he still gets the full 90 minutes with the Joe McKee good wee player card being played because he scored some goals last season, with people arguing others were just as bad when that clearly wasn't the case. Regardless of how much you might rate the player on paper, the reality is that he was absolutely ganting and has been throughout the season so far. His performances merit a trip to League Two just as much as anyone who is out on loan, and if he's in the starting XI again next Saturday having somehow lasted 90 minutes yesterday it would be an alarming indication that Imrie is starting to play favourites.

While the board clearly had some hand in the decisions to offer contracts early (ie any players young enough that we could potentially receive compensation got them, regardless of how that likely that was) Lyon had started every game under Imrie up to the point he got the contract, and was playing well too. It was only the second game after signing the new contract that he was dropped, but we'll never know whether the security of the contract led to an attitude problem in training or if it was just coincidental timing with Imrie always thinking he was the obvious candidate to be dropped for Wilson and having little to do with the contract. It was a two and half year deal rather than one and a half, incidentally.

Good luck to Garrity, that's a fair enough move and I certainly wouldn't write him off for going out on loan again - Strapp also had a second loan spell to League Two before establishing himself in the first team here. With Dumbarton flying so far this season as well it's probably a good place for a winger to go, he can slot into a winning team and he hopefully won't struggle for gametime when they've been playing Kalvin Orsi every week. Lyon going has to mean another midfielder is coming in today so we're not short for tomorrow. King and McGrattan are now our only cover there with King also currently being first choice left back. On the decision to loan him out in general, I reckon at this stage in their careers McGrattan needs the guaranteed game time far more than Lyon does with Lyon already having 100 games under his belt so I'd have preferred to see McGrattan go, while Lyon has played a variety of midfield roles and McGrattan appears to be strictly a playmaker. It's undeniable though that Lyon wasn't close to good enough in his starts this season, and with Imrie explicitly saying he wants him to come back "fitter and stronger" he clearly still has an issue with him there. On ability alone he should absolutely piss League Two, but if he doesn't do that then come back and fight for a place in January it doesn't bode well for his career.

David Galtieri or we riot. In all seriousness, if there's actually truth in the Low rumour rather than this being Arbroath fans having a massive panic about him being left out the squad with a minor niggle and doing 2+2=1922 this would be terrific. Assuming that still leaves the funds for a centre forward too, a Gillespie-Crawford-Low midfield three is a big upgrade on what we have and would give us depth with King, Blues, Lyon and McGrattan as cover. You'd have to wonder how much time McGrattan would get though and if he'd possibly be going on loan in that scenario, but either way the squad would be miles ahead of where it was just two weeks ago with Crawford, Low and a centre forward in.

I also had a chat on the phone after submitting some amendments (the addition to Article 16 there allowing a vote of no confidence in MCT Directors is mine). I don't want to give away everything that was said as they'll be communicating it themselves and that'll have the proper wording and explanation attached whereas I might get something wrong in the retelling, but the gist of it is that some of the changes around how people are elected to the GMFC board require a change to the GMFC Articles rather than MCT so haven't been included here, however a proper democratic process will be put in place for this. I have to say I was quite impressed with the conversation I had, and democratising everything was clearly already something they were giving a lot of thought to.

Surely the shares were the whole point of that need for greater transparency and a vote of the membership? This way we get the financial benefit without needing to to dilute our ownership of the club, which was what was controversial about the proposal for investment in the way of people buying up blocks of 5 or 10%. Sponsorship is simply something every football club does with no need to consult on it, and if links with that sponsor can also brings some expertise into the boardroom at literally no cost to the club then great. In the absence of shares being sold to a company it's far easier to get rid of anyone who turns out not to have decent motives, while a sponsorship deal means they're contractually obligated to pay.

Confirmed: https://livingstonfc.co.uk/jack-hamilton-joins-the-lions/

Class. Selling naming rights is a no brainer, we can all just carry on calling it Cappielow while the club gets far more money than they would for a company getting their name on the shorts or something. How many people even know that Dens Park isn’t officially called Dens Park, for example? As well as bringing money in it seems to be the arrival of some expertise to the board that wasn't there before. If having IT expertise around also means we can get an official website that isn't Dave McKinnon's shitey WordPress template and a ticketing website that actually works then great.

I'm happy with that. While he's not the out and out creative number 10 type that you could argue we needed, we're still going to be able to offer more creatively with him in the team and with the way the squad is looking any established Championship player who has proven themselves to be a solid performer at worst over several seasons at this level (and higher) is a very welcome addition. All attention turns to who we can add at centre forward now, but the midfield certainly looks a lot healthier with Crawford in the squad.

I don't think they necessarily need to sit on both boards at once, but at the very least the MCT board (if not members) should have the power to recall GMFC board members who are there in a capacity as MCT representatives. Similarly, MCT members should have the power to have a vote of no confidence in MCT board members. These things obviously need higher trigger points to instigate than any normal EGM/AGM resolution in order to avoid time being wasted by a small group of members with a personal vendetta against individuals, but while people probably have disagreements about how this should work in practice I think we can all agree it's necessary to have some kind of genuine through line of acccountability from MCT members to MCT board to GMFC board. Otherwise in practice we're not a fan owned club at all, we've just got fans making a donation for a private committee to appoint themselves and act as they please.

Aye, having seen that last night I'm going to get an email sent today with proposals for giving the membership greater control over who's on the MCT board outwith reelection, and also codifying the relationship between MCT representatives on the GMFC board and the MCT board. I hadn't done it yet as I was expecting half a dozen similar amendments to go in and with no legal knowledge whatsoever thought my wording might be guff, but no use complaining about how the articles need rewritten then seeing nothing happen: if my wording is shite or conflicts with existing articles it can be changed while keeping the gist of it anyway.

Loads of clubs have ditched the traditional programme model, moving to online only, monthly editions, quarterly with a lengthier magazine style or other variations. None of them have announced that change an hour and 45 minutes before kick-off. This is yet another example of a perfectly reasonable decision looking bad due to abysmal communication.

I think binning the development squad is the right thing to do for several reasons. The whole point of Project Brave was to load youth development even further in favour of big clubs by making it unaffordable for clubs like Morton to maintain with the removal of subsidies and here we are. You can just as a easily pick up competent Championship players or at a longer shot sellable assets through released players from bigger clubs rather than your own youth system, the development league will have a grand total of 9 games in it this season, the club has shown no signs of getting remotely near transfer fees to cover the substantial annual cost of running the squad, and we're not actually doing away with a youth setup entirely so although you possibly lose a potential late developer at 18 if they aren't ready for first team football yet, we still do have a pathway of some kind. The issue here, not for the first time, is communication about it. This could have been announced in an official club statement with that being the first fans heard of it. That statement could have set out the reasons, and preferably had mention of taking a wider look at or formal review of the club's operating model. Make it look like they're actively in control of the situation and thinking of how this decision can actually be part of a material improvement for the club as we have a proper review of how we recruit, and how this financial saving will be beneficial in moving towards that. Instead, most people found this out through John Sutton announcing his departure on twitter. Then there was a Telegraph story, where the narrative was entirely "we've had to do this because we're skint." Only the day after that Tele story did we get a club statement on the matter. This makes the club look reactive, like they're only making statements because they've been forced to by fans and journalists asking questions, like they're not really in control of the situation and haven't thought through the decision at all, as if they've just scrambled for something anything they can cut to save some money rather than properly thinking the positives and negatives through. It's a narrative that fully plays into the hands of the tedious bores churning out "fan ownership is a guaranteed disaster! Sell to Calum Melville immediately!" rhetoric, and it's entirely of their own doing through their inability to communicate properly. This needs to change.

I'm assuming this is just more accounts jumping off the Vize rumour and don't make me tap the sign again, but if there is something in it I can see the circumstances that would make everyone involved go for it. That's predicated on it being a dirt cheap, as close to pay as you play as you can get without breaking minimum wage legislation arrangement. I'd really rather we don't end up with Leigh Griffiths and think it would probably be a disaster, but I can see what the thought process would be. From Griffiths' perspective, if he's got no other club willing to take a shot on him after the Falkirk disaster he might just be desperate enough to take a deal on hardly any money. It's not like he needs it after some of the clubs he's played for and he can spend a year on buttons to put himself in the shop window, believing if he scores goals in the Championship he can get himself back to the Premiership in 12 months. From Morton's perspective the desperation angle also applies. If all we've got left in the budget is those sort of buttons, rather than this being a Nacho Novo/Garry O'Connor/Rowan Vine style bundle together a considerable wage out of a panic arrangement, I can see why a manager would go for the previously very accomplished centre forward who's on his way down believing he can get something out of him. If the alternative options with that sort of wage available are a player who's been released by a League Two club for not being good enough like Kalvin Orsi, or a young loanee who's either never looked good enough in the Championship before or never played at a serious level of football, those are all gambles in their own way and you can see a manager backing themselves to resurrect that player's career, particularly Imrie. To give examples of all those types of player this summer, you could feasibly have a list of options there of Akeel Francis, Innes Cameron, Kieran Offord or Leigh Griffiths. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Griffiths was a manager's first choice out of that list. The thing is it's not a footballing decision alone, and Griffiths has serious baggage. Considering how much of a gamble it is on the footballing side as it is, I wonder if the club would want to steer clear as they could really do without another summer of a hugely controversial signing that rumbles on months into the season after the fallout from Lithgow.

I'd be happy with Poplatnik but equally surprised if we got him. Championship and League One clubs who can outspend us are still looking for strikers.